Is Cory Bernardi planning speedy exit from politics

Senator emails colleagues looking for a buyer for his Canberra studio. What can this mean?

Cory Bernardi is selling his Canberra studio. Picture: AAP.

Cory’s storey

Is Cory Bernardi planning a speedy end-of-year exit from politics? The South Australian independent senator emailed his upper-house colleagues yesterday looking for a buyer for his small Canberra residence. “CBR Unit for Sale only $160K,” reads the email seen by Strewth after it hit senators’ inboxes at 10.47am.

“Colleagues, I am selling my studio apartment in Griffith and thought it might be of interest as it is among the most affordable accommodation within walking distance of Parliament House,” Bernardi wrote. “It Is (sic) also close to Fyshwick Markets, Griffith, Narrabundah and Manuka Shops and the Kingston Foreshore. ‘’

Sounds like a bargain — $9000 less than another studio listed online in the same street.

Strewth knows at least one senator who plans to make inquiries.

Bernardi refused to answer our questions on whether he’s leaving town. But one sympathetic senator told us Bernardi has hinted he’ll depart by Christmas, earlier than he’s previously indicated.

Bernardi said this month that he hadn’t “given a definitive timeline” but would leave before his term is up at the next election. He’s already closed down his Australian Conservatives party after its disappointing performance in May.

When he does go, the Senate seat will be filled by the Liberals.

Overstate the moon

After weeks of moon content, Strewth was surprised to hear this misstep from Jason Falinski, the Liberal member for Mackellar, yesterday: “The truth of the matter is that 50 years ago, on 21 July, human beings for the first time stood on another planet. Famously, Neil Armstrong said, ‘This is a small step for’ — he said — ‘a man, but a giant leap for mankind’.”

Slightly more out of this world than the time former Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek accidentally called Africa a country.

But the most jaw-dropping aside yesterday came from Keith Pitt, the LNP member for Hinkler, who said this about the time he owned a cane farm: “I clearly remember a gentleman and his dog who used to sleep rough in his car at the end of my road. Every morning I got into the habit of getting up, going out the front, looking to see if the gentleman was up and giving him a wave to make sure he was OK. He’d wave back and we’d move on. As a little bit of an aside in the time I’ve got left, I did take up the opportunity for a different car at one stage, and unfortunately I found a young couple in an amorous embrace, which I think I shouldn’t have interrupted.”

Lyons’ lines

Rising Liberal star Katie Allen, who replaced Kelly O’Dwyer in the seat of Higgins, gave her first speech to a packed public gallery yesterday. Allen, alongside Wentworth MP Dave Sharma, is considered by colleagues as the most likely from the class of 2019 to be tapped for a gig in the
outer ministry.

Sharma is related through marriage to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull (Strewth, Friday), but Allen also has some political pedigree.

“My cousin Margaret Bondfield was the first female member of cabinet in the UK parliament almost 100 years ago,” she told colleagues.

After mentioning her fascination with handwritten letters and love of Melbourne Breakfast tea, Allen quoted from the first speech of Enid Lyons, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives: “People began to think you have courage or hardihood to have a family of more than two or three’.

“Certainly Malcolm (Allen, her husband) and I took the Howard/Costello baby bonus initiative a bit too literally — we had one to replace each of us, one for the country and even one for the Liberal Party.”

Dread letters

Still on letters … “There’s something so beautiful about getting real letters in the mail,” Greens senator Nick McKim tweeted yesterday alongside a picture of an envelope addressed to him via “The Greens (dog whistling racist)” at the “Greens Centre for Anti-semitic dog whistling” in Parliament House.

The address was typed and must have been printed on the envelope, with bold and italic font for emphasis.

In dark green across the centre of the snail mail was written: “Why do the Greens support the Antifa-fascists?” McKim, who is no stranger to hate mail, said: “Emails can’t hope to replace this feeling.”

The same questions was asked in a letter sent to the Green MP for the seat of Melbourne.

The missive was addressed to “Adam Bandt Centre for Advanced F..kwit Economics (CAFE) Parliament House.

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